Makarov signed in defeat as he ended the call. Once again, the defending of Earthland has fallen onto the shoulders of his children. If it were the old council he just talked to he would have thought this was another plot to get Fairy Tail in trouble. But considering that the council wasn't made up of old men not connected to the common folk anymore, but guild masters of top 10 guilds in Fiore, he knew that the threat was real and that giving the responsibility to his children was the last option they had.

A lot had changed after the war. Alvarez had surrendered when Zeref had unexpectedly vanished from the battlefield. With their leader gone, the Spriggan 12 members had retreated, taking their deceased members with them.

A lot of weird things had happened that day. Those who were dead, rose like they never left the mortal plane. Those who were fighting found themselves unable to move. Those that were mortally wounded found themselves healed. And through it all, the black mage Zeref just stood there, eyes unfocused, head turned to the heavens. And when he had finally moved, he let out a wave of telepathy magic, signaling retreat and simply vanished without a trace.

After that, it got even weirder. Alvarez troops stopped attacking, the Spriggan 12 vanished and the war ended with Acnologia still at large, Zeref vanishing and Fiore and Alvarez left to lick their wounds in uneasy peace.

He sighed once again and moved to summon the ones he chose for the mission. As they entered his office he looked at his children. Lucy, Erza, Natsu, Gray, Happy, Wendy and Carla. Team Natsu. They had grown into their bodies, their magic. They were more confident and they moved like they were born to fight, to protect those who cant protect themselves.

Then there was a knock on the door. That must've been the rest of the team he assembled. As they walked in one by one, he had to hold back tears from the sheer pride he held for his children. Admittedly, he had had quite a few kegs of beer after the meeting, but you have to admit, his children were amazing.

Laxus, Gajeel, Juvia, Mira, Cana and Levy. He watched these young men and women fall and then rise again and again, each time brighter than the last. He watched them change for the better, he watched them live, cry, laugh and more. He knew how much they grew and he was so, so proud.

He had watched these young men and women grow from tiny snot-nosed children, to these powerful, confident mages, and he knew that they could do whatever they wanted and they would succeed.

As his children settled, he shuffled the papers on his desk and cleaned his throat, bringing their attention to himself.

"I have called you here because there I have for all of you." he let his gaze wander from child to child, and they all looked intrigued. "As you might know, there have been mysterious ethernano fluctuations in the air even before the war ended. Our attempts to figure that out have been unsuccessful."

He stood up and handed each of them a file. Waiting a few seconds so everyone could skim over them, he continued.

"The council believes that it has something to do with what happened 3 months ago. Earlier this year there was a rise in dark guild activity, but they had stayed in the shadows until now."

"And it's our job to get rid of them." grunted Laxus. Makarov eyed his grandson and signed.

"Not exactly. Our job is to take care of the group behind the scenes. The leaders, so to say."

Wendy furrowed her brows. "But… Why can't the other guilds help? Wouldn't we need backup?"

Makarov smiled at her. Wendy grew from the shy meek girl she was back when she first joined. Now she was a confident, powerful, young woman ready for her enemies. Before he could answer however, Laxus chimed in.

"Why call me here? You know damn well I'm not on active duty right now, since I'm stuck doin' your paperwork, old man."

Erza glared at him for his disrespect but Makarov shrugged it off and answered his question. "The rest of the council suggested I send out my strongest children to deal with the problem and I couldn't refuse." He turned back to Wendy.

"The rest of the guilds are busy getting rid of the lesser dark guilds. The goons. You'll have an easier time getting to the leaders without a bunch of mediocre dark mages slowing you down, I imagine."

Wendy nodded to show she understood and he continued with explaining the situation.

"In the file I gave you is everything the council knows about the dark guild alliance. They started causing ruckus about a few months before Alvarez invaded. If you remember when many libraries were broken into last year then you should know that that was them."

Sighing again, he mentioned for everyone to read through the first few documents." From what we could recover from the old council, we gathered that they had been looking for books on lost magics and history of times before Zeref."

"I thought there wasn't anything left from that time period," said Gray. The man had already lost all of his clothes and was sitting on the floor in his boxers.

"Gray, clothes." reminded Lucy. "In all seriousness though, I know such books exist. In fact, my parents have quite a book collection. it might be worth it if I check my dads study at the mansion."

"Didn't it get ransacked by those Legon dudes or whatever?" asked Natsu. He had been silent the whole time and Makarov was genuinely surprised as silent Natsu was a rarity. Well to be fair, out of all of them, Natsu had the hardest time after the invasion and he was not immature enough to not know when he shouldn't act childish.

"No, that was his 'public' collection. His study barely contained any valuable books. The real library was hidden in the basement only accessible by those keyed in. My parents used to be in a guild, you know." she answered. Makarov hadn't known that. He, as many others apparently, had assumed that the Heartfilias had stepped out of the mage business decades ago.

"Well, that settles it. Lucy, you will take Laxus and Levy with you to the Heartfilia Konzern to pick up anything you feel would be important.You will meet up with the rest of the Raijinshuu on the way, they have already been contacted about the mission." said Makarov.

Turning to Team Natsu, who were about to rage about how Lucy was their teammate, he said: "Team Natsu is going to be a distraction. We can't let the dark guilds know before we're ready for them to know. Are we clear?" He glared at Natsu, who was the one who went after his teammates the most. The man mumbled an answer and sat back on the floor to sulk, as one does. "You are to go and complete a few quests and I give you my explicit permission to destroy as much as you can. I want you to divert the attention of the public and the dark guilds onto you. They have been getting more suspicions of us lately and that should divert their attention from the investigation."

Having made Natsu feel better, Makarov directed his gaze to the children he hadn't given a task yet.

"Gajeel and Juvia, you are to go snoop around a few shady organizations we've been keeping an eye on to see if they are involved with the dark guilds. Mira, take your siblings to more populated towns and act as tourists and gather information that way. Cana, go to bars, you know what to do. I have a special task for you before that, though."

Cana, furrowed her eyebrows in question. What else could Makarov possibly want her for? Clearing his throat, he continued.

"We have 5 teams that will all go in different directions. We need something with a secure connection that will keep us all in contact. You have already reached a level beyond my knowledge about your cards." He leaned forward and looked Cana in the eyes. "Can I trust you with that task?" he asked.

Cana nodded, with a determined look in her eyes. "I won't let you down, old man."

"Good." Makarov nodded and took out some papers out of his desk drawer. "These are the quests I've reserved for you, team Natsu. You can start tomorrow, we still have some things to work out."

Lucy sighed as she led Laxus, Gajeel and Levy to her apartment. Cana had immediately gone to the library after the meeting ended, to start making the lacrima call cards. Mira had stayed behind, as she still worked as a barmaid, even though she was an active mage now.

"Say, Bunny Girl, why didn't you invite Salamander and the others over as well?" asked Gajeel, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"Well, knowing them, they're already there." There's no doubt her teammates were already waiting for her, judging by the way they all but ran out of the guild, dragging Carla and Wendy with them. Wendy was still too nice and shy for something like that, unlike the all of the brutes her team was made of. Sometimes it felt like they were more at her place than at their own apartments. Hell, Natsu even had a house, Erza owned 5 rooms at the Fairy Hills and who knows where Gray lived but he definitely had a nice place to stay. She was sure that Juvia made sure of that.

Turning down Strawberry Street, she led the group past her old apartment building and further down the street. The local fishermen called out to her when she jumped up on the wall along the river and she thanked them and assured them that she was perfectly fine. Levy giggled at her antics.

"Wasn't that your apartment building we just passed, Lu-chan?" she asked.

"Not anymore. I had to move to a different apartment because the landlady got sick of having to repair it every time something happened." Lucy answered. Leading the party up a stairway and to a door. Opening the door she was greeted by her teammates lounging around the living room. Each one of them waved as they entered. Lucy, offering the others a place to sit, went to the kitchen to prepare some tea.

Heavens knew they were going to need it.

"So," she called out from the kitchen. "Do any of you have a plan yet?"

Receiving negative answers, she brought out the tea to the spacious living room. Gajeel, Levy, Juvia and Laxus have sat down at the coffee table, all looking mildly uncomfortable. She served them tea, glared at her teammates and sat down next to Gray.

"This happen often?" asked Laxus. He was leaning on the back of the chair, having hung his coat on it while she was in the kitchen. Sighing once again, she nodded in defeat.

"Always. Can't even sleep without one of them barging in for a sleepover. Thank god this apartment is much bigger than my last one." Taking a sip of her tea, she gestured to the files on the coffee table.

"It's pretty straightforward isn't it. Find the dark guild, fight them and go home. An average day for a fairy tail wizard."

"I don't know Lu-chan. Something is missing and I'm afraid it's gonna bite us in the butt later." said Levy.

"You're right." said Erza. "We don't know all the facts, we barely know anything about this mission. We're almost going in blindly."

"Do you think maybe Master withheld information about the quest?" asked Wendy. She was perched on the corner of the couch, next to Natsu.

"I don't think gramps is hiding anything. That's not what he does. It's most likely that everything was destroyed, again." added Gray.

"Yeah, I heard the old man complain about that." chimed in Natsu. "I didn't get it at the time, but he was really angry that the old council of bastards didn't have a spell protecting everything."

"Well, that's fair. Gihi." said Gajeel. He was chomping on some metal he got from Heavens knew where. He better have not taken that from anywhere in my apartment, she thought.

"So, former love rival. How sure are you that your parents had anything that could help us? Juvia is kind of confused about that." asked Juvia from where she was snuggling to Gray. Since they got together, she got into the habit of calling Lucy her "former love rival".

"Well, while dad might have lost his books while gambling, anything that belonged to my mom belongs to me by magic, so there has to be something about ancient magics there. Heartfilias are an old family." she answered.

In truth, she wasn't sure. Her father had gambled and sold all he could to keep the Konzern his until he had nothing else, which might have affected her mothers belongings as well. The Heartfilia Konzern hadn't existed before her parents married and father started his business. However, the mansion is an old one that was built as a gift to Anna Heartfilia. It was bound by magic to the Heartfilia blood and will always belong to the Heartfilia's no matter what. The land around it however, was bought by her father after his work took off.

The mansion is now the only thing that her father couldn't lose to the Junelle family, but that doesn't mean that there's anything more than the building itself left.

With a flinch, she realised she was asked a question and keyed back into the conversation, resolving to think about it later.

Somewhere deep in the caves of Bosco, there sat a figure in front of thick dusty tome. The figure was dressed in a black cloak, the hood hiding their face. Two hands, one with a circle and one with a triangle on the back of it, came up and closed the tome shut, sending dust into the air.

"How interesting. At the rate we're going, I'll be able to achieve your goal soon, grandfather." they said.

Their pendant shone in the candle light. Triangle, circle, line.


Hi new and old readers. How have you been?Anyway, there you have it. The first chapter has been rewritten. How exciting, isnt it.I can't wait for your comments.Also, you should join this new anime discord server im moderating. We are a new server but we've worked so long to get it up and running, so you should atleast check us out.Here is the link:https/discord.gg/zyR2Uk2nZAByee, till next time!